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Junji Ito Collection

Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows how much I love horror. It’s one of the few things I completely gush over. Now, when it was announced that Junji Ito was going to have an anime about some of his short stories I was over the moon. Being a die-hard Junji Ito fan this was a dream come true. I didn’t know what to expect but it didn’t matter, there was finally going to be something else animated and I was beyond ecstatic.

The Junji Ito Collection adapted stories from the 11th volume of the Junji Ito Masterpiece Collection (Itō Junji Kessaku-shū) and the Fragments of Horror book. There are 12 episodes and within each episode there are 2 stories. The episodes flew by as I watched them so it was hard to wait for a new one to come out every week. It was nice seeing something different compared to my usual anime lineup but something was missing…..

The horror.

Don’t get me wrong a lot of the stories made me uncomfortable at times but it wasn’t the same when I read the manga. The lack of detail and atmosphere that are crucial elements when it comes to Junji Ito made the anime more quirky and less unnerving. I was disappointed with the end result but maybe my expectations were too high. I understand that getting every single detail into an anime is incredibly time consuming and not necessary with a lot of anime. However with this anime in particular there was such a lack of it. Things weren’t as creepy or gross and was overall underwhelming.

Anime adaptation (left) vs Manga (right)

Should I have lowered my expectations? Maybe. But I would have been okay with more detail in just still shots. Bring a certain gloom with the characters portrayed at the very least. Those who aren’t familiar with Junji Ito or have only seen glimpses of his manga maybe really find this adaptation to be creepy. It’s fun to watch when you forget that it’s supposed to be a horror anime. It becomes a weird supernatural anime where the events that take place are bizarre but some of the characters tend to be completely unphased. On one hand I would recommend watching Junji Ito Collection because it’s still out of the ordinary but if you’re a lover of Junji Ito and his works like I am then you might want to pass on this. I will say though the opening and ending songs are 10/10. So if anything, there’s that.

Yeah, it was a bit of a let down. I was excited because I really enjoyed Gyo and I more or less expected the same quality. The only thing I honestly take from the series are the opening and ending songs. I really like them.